What'd I Say

From Wikipedia:

“What’d I Say” (or “What I Say”) is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.

After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new subgenre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded “I Got a Woman” in 1954. The gospel and rhumba influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and appeared in the 2003 and 2021 versions of Rolling Stone‘s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list: at number 10 in 2003 and at number 80 in 2021. […]

According to Mark Lewisohn in “The Complete Beatles Chronicle“, The Beatles performed “What’d I Say” regularly between 1960 and 1962, with Paul McCartney on lead vocals. However, no known recordings from that period exist.

On January 7, 1969, during the “Get Back” sessions, The Beatles played a short version of the song.

Paul McCartney remembering when Ringo Starr joined the Beatles, and his ability to play the drums on “What’d I Say“:

I probably bore him by telling him the moment when the three of us realised he was The Guy. In my recollection, it’s at the Cavern and there’s me, John and George — which, right there, is pretty cool — standing at the front doing our thing, facing out on the mics. And then behind us, there’s this new guy depping, who we knew we liked — we’d seen him in another band. But now he was playing with us. And it just felt so different. It felt so amazing, and it just locked in with what we were all about. And I have this very vivid recollection of kind of looking at John and him looking at me and looking at George and him looking at me, and the three of us are going, ‘What the fuck, this is fucking amazing!”‘

As McCartney describes this, he wipes his eye. “And as you can see, it gets emotional. There was a moment. And I know there was a song a lot of bands used to do, a Ray Charles song, ‘What’d I Say’, and we used to do it but none of the drummers could get it. It’s quite a hard drum part — on the ride cymbal you’ve got to go” — McCartney sings out the cymbal part — “and at the same time you’ve got to go” — McCartney sings the other overlapping rhythm “you’ve got to put that together. And there’s a bass drum involved. So you’ve got to have a knack of putting those rhythms together. And here it was, right behind us.” McCartney whispers their breathless response. “Oh, yes!’ And it was a very special moment“.

Paul McCartney, from the Flaming Pie Archive Collection, 2020

Bootlegs

Live performances

“What'd I Say” has been played in 3 concerts and 1 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “What'd I Say” has been played

Cover versions played during the "Get Back" sessions

"What'd I Say" was covered during The Beatles' "Get Back" sessions in January 1969. Here is the complete list of covers recorded by Paul McCartney, either alone or with other Beatles, during these sessions:

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